On August 26, as part of his participation in the Smart China Expo-2019 exhibition in Chongqing, Secretary General of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Vladimir Norov met with the Chairman of the Alibaba Group Jack Ma.

During the meeting, particular attention was paid to developing multilateral trade-economic and investment cooperation between the parties.

“The leadership of the Alibaba Group was invited to establish close cooperation in order to fulfill the tasks of sharing knowledge, developing human capital in the field of digitalization and ICT, starting partnerships between companies (organizations) of the SCO member states, implementing joint projects on the territory of innovation clusters and technology parks throughout SCO space, exchanging experience on incubation and accelerating startups,” the SCO press release says.

In turn, Chairman of the Alibaba Group Jack Ma praised the activities and potential of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

“Alibaba is growing rapidly, but we are not proud of how much money we have earned, we are proud of how many jobs we have created. I think we should have had this meeting earlier,” Jack Ma said.

The head of Alibaba familiarized Norov with the company’s plans on creating more than 100 million jobs worldwide and supporting 10 million small enterprises. He also noted the importance of cooperation with the SCO in this process, taking into account the fact that more than 800 million young people live in this area.

“This is a huge opportunity and responsibility. We are ready to assist the SCO in implementing the Concept of cooperation in the field of digitalization, information and communication technologies,” Jack Ma said, announcing his readiness to send a working group to the SCO secretariat in the near future to determine the main areas of cooperation.